Braille camp teaching vision impaired children from remote and regional towns to read

It's tough teaching kids to read, but try teaching them to read with their fingers, then add in the fact they live in remote locations and attend school over the internet.

Tracey McCann is head of the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) Teleschool which teaches vision impaired children to read braille.

"Braille is not an easy skill to learn and can be quite tedious as any skill is," Ms McCann said.

Even with major technological advancements, like voice-activated phones and in-home technology, Ms McCann said it is still crucial for children to learn to touch read.

"Braille cannot be replaced by auditory means. Braille is literacy, it's learning to read." she said.

"Listening things is not the same as reading, so it's very important for cognitive development, for concept development and being able to be literate."

The added challenge is the children the Teleschool teachers are learning remotely, from their home computers, across Australia.

"They're often living in very small remote, regional towns and because of that they don't have access to the professionals with the skills in vision impairment or hearing impairment, particularly in braille."

A camp for learning braille

Teachers from the RIDBC school teleconference families throughout the country with kids often learning specialist skills alongside their parents and siblings.

And for the first time, 142 children, gathered in Sydney for the past week on a special camp to develop their finger-literacy skills.

Kids as young as three joined in at the camp with children joined by their family and have come together to inject some fun into learning braille.

Children have been using traditional tools including reading braille books and cards, but have also been practicing on more modern equipment including a device called a Braille Sense.

It acts as a computer where the user presses down on refreshable braille dots to form sentences.

The document can then be sent via Bluetooth signal to a printer or a braille embosser, and is used by many visually impaired students to complete assignments.

Other camp-goers have been practicing climbing stairs without the assistance of a cane and honing everyday skills like cutting fruit and vegetables.